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Life & Times: K-9 trainer's gruff exterior masked a kind spirit

KEVIN GEORGE (1946 — 2014)

Kevin George working with Edmonton police officers and police dogs

EDMONTON - Wanda Karstens met Kevin George when she was a mall rat at Bonnie Doon and he, the head of security and the object of Karstens’ teenage crush.

George was a compassionate man, even at age 23, Karstens said: hard on shoplifters and drug dealers, but fair and friendly to mall rats like herself, arranging for an empty store front to become a teen centre.

George remained in the security world, eventually opening his own security firm and training guards, correctional officers and jail riot squads, but also training dogs to track criminals, and to find missing people as part of Alberta’s first Search and Rescue team.

“He had an air about him and a walk about him that exuded authority, and yet at the same time he was very compassionate,” Karstens said.

George, 67, died May 4 from a massive stroke, his health having deteriorated after several heart attacks and a battle with diabetes.

Karstens, who remained friends with George, took her first mutt, Wolf, to George’s Sentry Dogs school for training, then worked at the school herself for 10 years, answering phones and occasionally teaching classes.

“He liked dogs because they’re honest,” said Karstens, 58. “With dogs, it’s black and white. It doesn’t matter what you do to a dog, they always have unconditional affection for you.”

George, who was born Sept. 16, 1946, got hooked on dogs at the age of seven or eight, when his father suggested he help a blind man with a dog kennel full of Newfoundlands in the Mill Creek ravine, near George’s family home.

Young George not only helped clean the kennels and feed the dogs, but also took the man’s Irish wolfhound and greyhounds to hunt coyotes for bounty.

In 1979, George launched his Sentry dog school with Karstens’ belligerent dog in the second class.

“(Wolf) tried to start a dogfight every week and he tried to fight Kevin every week,” Karstens said. By the end of the course, Wolf finished second highest in the class and remained on George’s demonstration team for life, showing off at Home and Garden shows or K-Days.

George worked with the Edmonton Police Service’s K9 unit, and received awards for introducing RCMP Search and Rescue dog training standards to Alberta so the animals could help with ground, water and disaster searches. George travelled as far as the Netherlands and Iceland to share his dog-training skills.

Closer to home, he was the Grade 9 grad date for Karsten’s daughter, Breanna Karstens-Smith.

“It doesn’t sound like every 14-year-old’s dream date, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way,” Karstens-Smith said in an email. She got into a hair-pulling fight with another girl that night, and while her mother worried she had dirtied her homemade crystal-embellished gown, “Uncle Kevin” correctly asked: “Did you win?”

George was also Karstens-Smith’s biggest fan as she began her career in TV journalism. After his death, Karstens-Smith found a folder in his house labelled “Famous TV Star” which held a photo of her reporting in Medicine Hat.

“I know Uncle Kevin kept a roof over our heads multiple times,” she said. “There were a few times when we couldn’t afford all the bills on time, or groceries. … It was at that time he gave my mom a job at the dog school.”

George was also a ju-jitsu master who taught self-defence classes to women at his own dojo or training school. He played conga drums in bands, was a magician and a rodeo clown.

“I made an appearance in that sport, too,” said son Ryan George, 45. “As a small kid, I needed to go pee so naturally I hopped into the rodeo ring and headed to my dad. Problem was, he was facing off with a very large and angry bull at the time. The crowd roared with excitement, or maybe fear, but he made the dash to rescue me.”

In the early years, George even trained the Edmonton Valley Zoo’s Lucy the elephant to pick things up with her trunk or stand on one foot. When George visited her after a 13-year hiatus, Karstens said, Lucy “remembered him. She was all over him, loving him.”

George always offered compliments for good work, and created “tiger claws” to rake through a dog’s fur while offering praise in a high-pitched voice.

“Sheer ecstasy” for the dogs, Karstens said.

Cathy Kruschke, who grew up two doors down from the George family in the Ritchie neighbourhood, said he always looked after people, remaining for life in his family home to take care of his 94-year-old mother and his aunt. George regularly paid for the restaurant tabs of police officers, strangers and friends from across the room, including Kruschke and her mother.

“He was a very kind guy,” Kruschke said. “He could be very gruff, as people in the security business can be, but inside, he was a real marshmallow.”

George is survived by his mother, his brother, son, daughter-in-law and only granddaughter, 11-year-old Carmen.

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